The Weight Of What Is To Come
by Thaif
Summary: WE: An angsty oneshot dealing with the aftermath of DMC for Will and Elizabeth.


We have saved Jack and just escaped Purgatory, yet I cannot bring myself to rejoice like the others do, not even momentarily. The thought that our journeys are far from over is ever present. We must still face Jones and Beckett, and I must still somehow engineer a way to free my father. It all weighs heavily on my heart and that weight is nigh unbearable thanks to one burden in particular: Elizabeth. As I stand on the deck of the Black Pearl amidst the ruckus of celebration, I can't even bring myself to search out her face in the crowd. We have been avoiding each other for weeks while we carried out Jack's rescue and each time we spoke, we said nothing of consequence and certainly not anything pertaining to our future.

I suddenly realize that I am leaning on the exact spot where Jack was when she betrayed me and my body recoils away from the mast. As I reach up to rub my brow in frustration, I notice my hand is smeared with grease. Questioning what has sullied my grip, I look to the mast and see the pair of handcuffs I was toying with while I stood. As I take them in my hands to examine them more closely, I notice they are locked and covered in oil. Locked handcuffs. Covered in grease. Exactly where Jack stood. "Oh god," I whisper. "What did you do?" I have a flashback of Elizabeth leading him backward to this very spot as they kissed and the realization of what she did makes me stumble. "She betrayed me to betray him. She sacrificed him to save us," I murmur under my breath. As I look up to search Elizabeth out, I immediately see her sitting on the stairs leading to the bow of the ship. She has been staring at me and judging by the pained, guilty look ravaging her features, she knows that I have pieced together the puzzle. I can see a tear slip down her cheek and I go to her, squatting down to meet her face to face.

"I didn't know how to tell you," she says to me.

"I'm not sure I would have let you… After I saw you kiss him, I could barely even look at you," I reveal, taking her chin between my thumb and forefinger.

"You saw?" she questions with quiet surprise and obvious displeasure. "No wonder you've been so cold." I can see the guilt physically racking her body. "Oh God," she declares lowing her head and raking her hands through her hair, "I'm an awful person."

I want to comfort her, but I don't necessarily know if I should condone her behavior either. "What you did was questionable, yes – to feel remorse is natural…"

"No," she interrupts. "I'm awful because I'm not sorry…I told him so right before… He was going to let us all die to save himself. Again," she comments pointedly. "I just don't feel like it was the wrong thing to do…I'd do it again."

I don't quite know what to say to that. She killed a man, even if he hasn't stayed deceased. And Jack is a good man on some level – although he had never truly showed the same level of decency again, he had once saved her life without knowing her or a second thought.

"If you feel no regret, then why go to such lengths to save him?"

"It's not that I didn't want to save him, I did. I'm glad we saved him. He didn't deserve his fate, but we deserved it less…I'm just not remorseful about the choice I made and I'm scared about what kind of person that makes me."

Understanding her dismay more clearly, I let her know, "I can see why you did what you did. I understand it. We all would have died at the mouth of the Kraken if you hadn't. Your method was clearly a deception, but your intentions were still honorable. I don't think it makes you an awful person to save yourself and others from a fate they didn't earn. Honestly," I realized, "what you did takes courage I'm not sure I possess."

"You have valor in spades Will," she states absently almost as if she feel the statement is too obvious to warrant contemplation. "What I did wasn't brave, it was selfish." She whispers seemingly lost in her own thoughts, "I couldn't let you die."

I admit my heart rejoices at her statement for just moments ago I was so unconvinced of my place in hers.

She turns to me and explains, "I'm sorry I made you doubt me, but I'm afraid you were right to doubt me, you were just doing so for the wrong reason."

As I take a seat beside her I advise her, "You are a good person Elizabeth. I have no doubt of that."

I take her hand and she grasps mine tightly as she leans into me and rests her head in the crook of my neck.

With shame in her voice she queries, "What must you have thought of me when you saw…? I never wanted you to see."

I admit, "I was afraid I had been replaced."

"It's just not possible," Elizabeth assures me in an almost wonder filled tone, "My heart is so brimming with you…" She pauses suddenly and pulls back slightly to examine my face for a moment. "Did you come to rescue Jack for me? Because you thought he was the one in my heart?"

"I thought you loved him," I reveal and her head shakes with disbelief.

"You don't kill the one you love Will, you do anything in your power to save them."

Taking her in my arms, holding her close and breathing her in, the burden of what is to come still weighs down heavily upon me, but at this moment it feels infinitely lighter.


End file.
